July 28, 2012

"He encourages it and w/ o knowing what it says, leaves room for it.… On Sunday I woke up, waiting for Barack to wake, writing a bit more — feeling severed from him through b’fast (lack of physical connection— it means so much more than lust, after all)… and then reading Neruda’s poetry— excellent translation — powerful words, the truth in existence so much prettier for the poetry— and reading it really transfigured my thoughts, emotions, mood— and I just lay, w/ my head on Barack’s lap and my eyes closed, w/ words and words and words lapping, lapping through my tongue and soul and I felt older, wiser, in harmony w/ things; the calm after the storm."

Excerpt from the diary of Genevieve Cook, February 20, 1984, reprinted in David Maraniss's book "Barack Obama: The Story," at page 471.

Is Barack Obama kindling in you your voice to yourself? He encourages it and leaves room for it. Now, you may feel severed from him, but perhaps after reading some poetry, your thoughts, emotions, and moods may be transfigured. Or do you feel older and wiser after all those words and words and words lapping, lapping through your tongue and soul?

The attempt to impose upon man, a creature of growth and capable of sweetness, to ooze juicily at the last round the bearded lips of God, to attempt to impose, I say, laws and conditions appropriate to a mechanical creation, against this I raise my sword-pen...

What horrible phrasing. Barely decipherable. I know, the beautiful people can't be bothered. Everything ceases to be amusing - their favorite word - when one bothers to care. About anything. Anything other than being withit that is. Which is why the beautiful people leave such a terrible taste in the mouth. A far worse taste than that left by out and out villains where at least you know where you stand. There's meaning and clarity in pure enmity. But with the beautiful people everything dribbles away into shit.

My memory's hazy but I think I might've had a falling out with Carnifex. In which case kidding around is a no no. But if I didn't have a falling out with Carnifex it's okeydokey. The one advantage that age brings is you can't remember so screw it just do it.

Obama in 2008 had an effect on his followers kind of like James Earl Jones as Thulsa Doom in the Conan movie. "Come to me, my child" he says, and the pretty white girl leaps to her death. Let's hope Romney has it in him to overturn the cauldron of green cannibal stew and put an end to this snake cult.

Leslyn you really believe this shit? Book burning is a human tradition. Excesses left and excesses right. Actual book burning is pretty much out of favor in the United States today. Won't play well. The game now is suppression and collateral punishment.

What do you suppose the people at Chick-Fil-A think the consequence of their speech is, right now in America?

Leslyn, with a quick look at Google " Cuban librarians", one finds an article mentioning that "This week marks the 7th anniversary of the 2003 sentencing of 26 persons who had established independent libraries to prison terms averaging 19 years. Ten have been released, mainly for health reasons. Sixteen remain in prison, of whom seven are in very poor health, with one near death." Damn those rightys!

Indeed he did. IIRC, it was left out of the Collected Works. Because, y'know, a trifle embarrassing.

He has attracted a certain amount of hero worship, but his politics were no less pernicious than those of Ezra Pound.

The amusing part of this is that practically no one reads Ezra Pound. First he was shunned for being a Fascist, and then he was relegated to the back shelf. Whereas Neruda, fervent Stalinist, never made it so far as the back shelf.

The Wiki article on Neruda contains an interesting account of his falling-out with Octavio Paz. It appears that their ultimate break had something to do with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Someone supported it, and someone didn't. Guess which was which?

This is the same test I use to distinguish the "sincere idealists" from the Stalinists in the mid-20th-c. If your opinion of Nazi Germany changed abruptly when it invaded the USSR, whereas you had previously sought to combat negative portrayals of Nazi Germany in the media, positive support of the UK, and anything else that might hurt Nazi Germany ... you were a Soviet stooge and nothing else. If after the invasion your views didn't change, you were that different but also vile critter, a sincere Nazi.

If you were sufficiently revolted by both sides to want to be quit of both by the time they allied, then you deserve to be called a political idealist. Unfortunately, the CPUSA membership pretty much sucked it up. Hey, divvy up Poland with the Nazis, no biggie. And we don't need to think to carefully about the disposition of people of particular ethnicities within their own borders -- or whatever their borders will be, pursuant to the policies we are to see carried out.

Leslyn, with a quick look at Google " Cuban librarians", one finds an article mentioning that "This week marks the 7th anniversary of the 2003 sentencing of 26 persons who had established independent libraries to prison terms averaging 19 years. Ten have been released, mainly for health reasons. Sixteen remain in prison, of whom seven are in very poor health, with one near death." Damn those rightys!

Penny, I put the books in boxes. The boxes go to the garage, where they take up space and probably start to deteriorate, or to our storage locker where I pay good money every month to keep from dealing with the issue.

To be men! That is the Stalinist law! . . .We must learn from Stalinhis sincere intensityhis concrete clarity. . . .Stalin is the noon,the maturity of man and the peoples.Stalinists, Let us bear this title with pride. . . .Stalinist workers, clerks, women take care of this day!The light has not vanished.The fire has not disappeared,There is only the growth ofLight, bread, fire and hopeIn Stalin’s invincible time! . . .In recent years the dove,Peace, the wandering persecuted rose,Found herself on his shouldersAnd Stalin, the giant,Carried her at the heights of his forehead. . . .A wave beats against the stones of the shore.But Malenkov will continue his work.

Well, at least you're angry. I was sad, sad, sad, and for quite a while.

I mean, face it. Paperbacks get passed off. It was my professional library that I accumulated over thirty years that broke my back both figuratively and literally. One company to the next, then home to the spare bedroom bookshelves, and then to the basement, where they were lucky to survive another three years until other "stuff" needed that space.

I knew damned well when I lugged them for the very last time, that they would be BURNED, and without fanfare.z